For over half a century, controversy and debate surrounded a NASCAR Cup Series race at Bowman Gray Stadium on August 6, 1971.

It was one of six races that year featuring a mixed field with Cup cars and the smaller Grand American cars. Bobby Allison chose to drove a Grand American ’70 Ford Mustang that day and ended up beating all of the Cup stars, leading 138 of 200 laps with Richard ‘The King’ Petty a few seconds behind in second place.

While Allison went to Victory Lane and hoisted the trophy like any other week, the win was never actually recognized in the record books. In fact, no one was awarded the Cup win for that race despite it being an official part of the 1971 schedule. The fact that he wasn’t driving a Cup car in the mixed field meant that he wasn’t credited as a Cup Series winner.

Bobby Allison being recognized for 85 NASCAR Cup wins

Photo by: NASCAR Media

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Allison has not been quiet on his views on the race,  having been adamant about having 85 Cup wins — not 84. It’s even more important since being granted that win would break a tie with another NASCAR Hall of Famer. Well, it’s finally happened. NASCAR has dug into the record books, grabbed some white out and made it right. At 86 years old, Allison takes sole possession of fourth on the all-time wins list after being tied with Darrell Waltrip since 1992.

Allison, who won the 1983 NASCAR Cup Series title, was also inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011. This also comes at some interesting timing as Bowman Gray — the site of this controversial result — is returning to the Cup schedule in 2025. The historic short track in Winston-Salem, North Carolina will host ‘The Clash’ in 2025, which serves as the unofficial kick-off to the new season.

It will be the first Cup race at Bowman Gray since that controversial 1971 event where Allison didn’t get credit for a win that was rightfully his. As the newly crowned most recent Cup winner at Bowman Gray, he will surely be there next February when the green flag flies.

Updated All-Time Wins List

NASCAR’s regular season champion Tyler Reddick was having a strong run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with the Stage 1 win already in the bag until lap 89, when his 2024 Cup Series Championship hopes suffered a literal twist of fate. 

It was on the restart — Reddick made a run on the outside to go three-wide with Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. beneath him through Turns 3 and 4. Battling for fourth position on track, Truex drifted up on corner exit, putting Elliott in a difficult position. He tried to lift, but it was too late. The Hendrick Motorsports star made contact with the charging Reddick and both drivers spun down the track. They moved across the front stretch, collecting Brad Keselowski and all three cars spun out of control through the infield grass.

Tyler Reddick spins

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

It was fairly standard for a restart wreck — until Reddick’s car crossed over from the grass to the asphalt section that makes up Turns 3/4 in the Legends car oval. He went completely sideways facing pit road — the car hopping up off the ground.

Tyler Reddick’s car lifts up off the ground

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

The car was already leaning when the right-side tires returned to Earth. It dug into the grass, fighting against it for a brief moment before finally rolling forward.

Tyler Reddick’s car digs into the grass

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

The car laid on the passenger side door as Keselowski’s car made its way back up the track. Both Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney hit the outside wall as they attempted to avoid the orange No. 6 Ford. In the background, Elliott’s car also hopped across the paved part of the infield, but his No. 9 Chevrolet did not flip, thankfully.

Tyler Reddick begins to roll as Brad Keselowki spins back across the track

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

Reddick’s car was fully upside down when it returned to the pavement, skidding across the restart zone with grass and dirt flying.

Tyler Reddick rolls

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

Unlike blowovers like Corey LaJoie at Michigan and Josh Berry at Daytona, this car did not stay on its roof for very long. The No. 45 Toyota never stopped rotating, continuing to roll forward while fully on the apron.

Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing, Jordan Brand Toyota Camry flips in the infield grass

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

The car was finally right-side up again as it exited the restart zone and reached the start/finish line. Luckily for Reddick, this was a single-flip rollover.

Tyler Reddick’s car continues to roll

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

After just three seconds from the moment the car initially hopped off the ground, Reddick was back on all four wheels. The car did a single roll before slamming back down on its wheels.

Tyler Reddick’s back on all fours

Photo by: Lesley Ann Miller / Motorsport Images

Most impressively, Reddick was still able to drive the car. He limped the No. 45 to his pit stall, but the damage was too significant for him to continue racing.

Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing, Jordan Brand Toyota Camry

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

As confirmed by Seth Eggert — known as the resident ‘stat guy’ in NASCAR circles — this was the first NASCAR stock car to flip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 24 years and just the third to ever do so. Shane Hall flipped in testing in 2000 and in 1998, Randy LaJoie flipped in a NASCAR Xfinity race at Las Vegas. This is also the fourth rollover crash of the 2024 NASCAR Cup season with the others occurring at Daytona (Berry), Talladega (LaJoie), and Michigan (LaJoie).

Reddick took responsibility for the aggressive move that led to the crash, saying: “By the time I realized I was in trouble, it was just too late … I needed to make the decision earlier when I saw them sliding. Just be a little more conservative. That would have avoided the incident. Just not who I am, not what we do.”

The flip left Reddick unscathed, but the same cannot be said for his championship hopes. He is now 30 points below the cut-line, firmly in the elimination zone with two races left in the Round of 8.

Bob Pockrass

FOX NASCAR Insider

Joey Logano already has made a little bit of history as the underdog story in the current NASCAR playoff system.

Having finished 15th in the regular-season point standings, he is the driver lowest in regular-season points to make the Championship 4 since the start of the stage-point era in 2017.

That he hasn’t had the greatest of years has led to some criticism on whether he truly is a Championship 4 driver.

And just imagine the reaction if Logano wins the Cup title after being 15th in regular-season points and then initially not even making the semifinal round until Alex Bowman’s disqualification from Charlotte resurrected Logano’s championship hopes.

The stats don’t lie:

–Logano has six top-5s this year; no other driver in this round has fewer than nine, and Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson have 13 this year.

–Logano has 11 top-10s; no other driver in this round has fewer than 15, and Bell leads all with 21.

–Logano ranks eighth in miles led and ninth in laps led this year. Logano has led 3.54 percent of the laps, while three drivers have led more than 10 percent — Larson (18.64 percent), Bell (11.53 percent) and Denny Hamlin (10.64 percent).

But Logano does have three wins. Only one driver has more this year — Larson with six. Now one can look at Logano’s victories — a five-overtime fuel-mileage strategy win at Nashville, a drafting-track win at Atlanta and then the fuel-mileage strategy win at Las Vegas that has vaulted him into the championship fight in a couple weeks at Phoenix — and say they didn’t come from dominating performances.

Wins are wins. That is what drivers and teams try to do every week. Logano has three of them, and just for that reason alone, that should be enough to say he has had a season that doesn’t devalue championship status. 

Logano noted last week how in the Next Gen era, dominant seasons are unlikely. He said he and his son were going through a pre-Next Gen season yearbook, and it dawned on Logano how different the series has been since 2022.

“He started reading the finishing order and the top 10 was almost the same every weekend [pre-Next Gen],” Logano said. “It was the same top-10 drivers and now you look at the top 10 and it’s different every week.  There are people in and out of that thing.  It’s not like you’re clicking off 20-something top 10s.

“There’s 10 cars doing that throughout the year.  It doesn’t happen anymore.  The game has changed.  This car has completely changed everything that we used to know about NASCAR and I just go with it because it’s just the craziest things we do now.  You look at the way we race on the track, the tracks that we go to — you name it and it can happen.”

Logano making the Championship 4 has happened. And as much as some might want to say this Logano has not performed to a championship level, his season has, in many ways, been impressive.

There was a reason that Logano entered the year with some doubting whether he would make the playoffs (this writer being one of them). The new Ford body was unproven and there was speculation maybe not as much of an improvement.

There was a reason that Logano entered the playoffs with some dismissing him with a first-round exit (this writer being one of them). Logano was fourth among the Ford drivers in the regular season. He had not run up front enough to show they would have enough opportunities to score points needed.

But now his two playoff victories have him at three wins, more than any other Ford driver this year. The only other Ford driver with more than one win is his Penske teammate Ryan Blaney, who has two.

Winning a championship in the current system is about a driver and team executing and performing to the best of their ability. Logano and his team have done that and possibly have been the best of that throughout the playoffs.

While other teams have suffered misfortunes on pit road or gotten collected in accidents, Logano has avoided those misfortunes except at Talladega, where most of the field was involved in an accident.

If he performs well at Phoenix to win the title, it would show another Herculean performance. He started 23rd at Phoenix in the spring and struggled before getting into an accident. The signs are there that a big gain is possible — at New Hampshire, a somewhat similar 1-mile track, in the summer, Logano qualified sixth and was top-three in each of the stages before an accident on a restart ruined his day.

Logano won’t enter the championship race as the favorite and more-than-likely IS viewed as the least-likely champion.

But if he does prevail, assuming he does it by winning or running near the front at Phoenix, he’ll be a champion deserving of praise and respect for a major accomplishment.

He wouldn’t have had the best season, but he has had a season where he made the most of the opportunities and improved to a point in the playoffs where he could be a factor. He’s shown grit and determination and performed when it mattered the most — the necessary ingredients for a champion.

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.

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Esteban Ocon questioned Alpine’s call to pit him late in the United States Grand Prix and take the fastest lap – before realising it was to stop Williams claiming an additional point in what could be a tight battle in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship.

Williams driver Franco Colapinto was running 10th on Sunday, but was on to double his points haul for the race after setting the fastest lap.

Yet Alpine was aware of this and called in Ocon, who was running towards the back of the field, to put on soft tyres and beat Colapinto’s effort with three laps remaining. 

The two squads are squabbling over eighth and ninth place in the standings and Williams is now four points ahead with five rounds left of the 2024 season.

“The only thing at the end was to recover the fastest lap – to get it away from Williams, from Franco, and we managed to do that successfully, but the car was difficult to drive,” said Ocon, who finished 18th after a forgettable race.

Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524

Photo by: Alpine

“Normally, P10 never has the fastest lap, that is why I questioned completely [the decision to stop], because I didn’t see the point. But I get it now.

“It’s a battle for everything in the end and a point is a top 10 finish, which is very important. I’m sorry to him because he deserved it, to be fair, but that is how it is.”

Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes praised the call to bring Ocon into the pits as the French squad aims to overtake Williams before the end of the season.

“Credit to the guys on the pitwall,” he said. “I think they were beating themselves up a bit, but it is never easy. Everyone has got hindsight afterwards but that was a good call at the time.

“I guess it’s a bit cheeky to take a point off Williams for the fastest lap, because I think Colapinto would have had it had we not, so that was the main reason.

“Fair play to Williams, they are doing a good job. I think Baku was a big weekend for them [Williams scored 10 points] and capitalising on that has made our lives a little bit difficult to get that back, but there are still a few races to go and we are aiming for that.”

Oliver Oakes, Team Principal, Alpine F1 Team, in the Team Principals Press Conference

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Colapinto impressed yet again and secured another points finish for Williams, who brought in the Argentinian to replace Logan Sargeant from September’s Italian GP onwards.

He will not race for the team next year as Carlos Sainz will join from Ferrari to partner Alex Albon, but his form means he remains in the conversation for a drive – as Sauber and RB are yet to finalise their line-ups.

“We had the fastest lap,” Colapinto told Motorsport.com. “He took it with new tyres but it had not been close before.

“I think I did it many laps earlier, with an older tyre, and I think we just had a much better pace than them. They had to put a new set of wheels, low fuel to try to take it from us.

“So they weren’t close to us in terms of pace. But look, it’s part of racing. I was happy for the fastest lap and I wanted to keep it but it’s fine. We had it for a while. 

“It’s a point that we lost, but we are going to recover it soon. We had a good car, and we are capable of scoring points, so we’re going to come back stronger, I’m sure of that.” 

Franco Colapinto, Williams FW46

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

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Alpine’s call came just days after it was confirmed that the point for fastest lap would be scrapped from 2025 onwards.

There was controversy at the Singapore GP last month as Daniel Ricciardo, racing for RB for the final time, came in towards the end of the race for softs and took the fastest lap point away from Lando Norris.

The McLaren driver is fighting for the title against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, with the team denying after the race that it had called on the sister squad to pit Ricciardo to snatch the extra point from Norris.

Two-time Le Mans winner Earl Bamber will race for Cadillac in next year’s IMSA SportsCar Championship in what looks set to be a twin programme straddling the World Endurance Championship.

Bamber, winner at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2015 and 2017 with Porsche, was announced as a full-season driver for the solo Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh when the General Motors brand took the wraps off its full line-up for its three IMSA GTP class entries on Wednesday. 

Cadillac will not be revealing its roster for the two Jota WEC entries until after next month’s series finale in Bahrain, but it is expected that Bamber will move over to the British team from the Ganassi squad with which he has raced in the series for the past two seasons.

The New Zealander, who joined Cadillac for an IMSA programme with Ganassi in 2021 after his departure from Porsche, has made no secret of his desire to race in IMSA’s GTP class alongside his WEC commitments with the brand. 

No confirmation of Bamber’s dual programme was forthcoming from Cadillac ahead of its WEC announcement, which is understood to be due in mid-November. 

But Bamber alluded to a joint programme in his statements in the IMSA announcement from Cadillac.

#02 Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-LMDh: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, Richard Westbrook

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

“Hopefully I can bring experience from the WEC and IMSA, and I think it will also bring a little bit of continuity,” he said. 

“We have that on the engineering side and hopefully on the driver side that shared information from both platforms brings us forward.”

What is not clear is what programme will take precedence for Bamber when the two series have a conflicting date in May with the Spa WEC round and the Laguna Seca IMSA event taking place on the same weekend.

The same would apply to Le Mans should Action Express return to the double-points round of the WEC, which it has contested as an additional Caddy entry for the past two editions.

Bamber is replacing four-time Sebring 12 Hours winner Pipo Derani at Action Express, winner of the IMSA GTP title in 2024, after the Brazilian announced his decision to leave Cadillac back in June. 

Briton Jack Aitken will remain as a full-season Action Express driver for a second season, while 2023 Formula 2 runner-up Frederik Vesti comes in as the team’s additional driver for selected long-distance races in Michelin Endurance Cup segment of the IMSA series. 

The 22-year-old Dane, who is a Mercedes Formula 1 reserve driver this year, is getting his maiden chance with a manufacturer in sportscar racing after taking his first steps in the discipline this year in LMP2 in the European Le Mans Series. 

His season with the Swiss Cool Racing squad included two podiums at Paul Ricard and Portimao in May and October respectively aboard one of the team’s ORECA-Gibson 07s. 

Bamber, who this year contested three IMSA enduros with Corvette Racing in GT Daytona Pro, described the chance to return to IMSA with Action Express as “an exciting opportunity”.

“I’ve really missed IMSA, driving in America,” he added. 

Action Express team boss Gary Nelson said: “We are all very excited to have such an amazing group of talented drivers lined up for the 2025 season. 

“Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber bring a great combination and bringing in a young, talented Frederik Vesti for endurance races adds to what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Kamui Kobayashi will return to Wayne Taylor Racing next year when he bids for a third victory in three starts at the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA SportsCar Championship season-opener.

The two-time World Endurance Championship title winner with Toyota was named in the #40 WTR with Andretti Cadillac V-Series.R for Daytona in January when the team announced an unchanged full-season driver line-up after its switch from Acura.

The regulars in the #40 car will be Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz, who came together when WTR expanded to two cars this year, while Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque will continue a partnership that dates back to 2021 in the #10.

The drivers who will join the two regular pairings are all veterans of previous WTR campaigns.

Kobayashi drove WTR Cadillac Daytona Prototype international machinery before the team’s four-season stint with Acura at Daytona in 2019 and 2020, winning the race both times, with Fernando Alonso among his team-mates in the first year.

The 38-year-old, who is also team principal of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WEC squad, was unable to drive for WTR on its switch to another Japanese brand and moved to the Action Express Racing Caddy DPi-V.R run in conjunction with Hendrick Motorsports under the Ally Cadillac Racing banner in 2021 and 2022.

The line-up in the #40 V-Series.R will be completed by Cadillac regular Alex Lynn, who will race the car at the Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans enduros that make up part of the five-event IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup segment of the series.

Current Cadillac driver Lynn will join WTR for enduro events

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

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The Briton, who looks certain to continue with Cadillac in the WEC on its switch of teams from Ganassi to Jota next year, has a 100% winning record with WTR, like Kobayashi.

Lynn contested the 2017 Sebring 12 Hours with the team, winning the race aboard a Caddy DPi shared with the Taylor brothers, who are the sons of team founder Wayne.

Ricky Taylor, who is returning to Cadillac after seven seasons with Acura that began at Penske in 2018, and Albuquerque will be joined by Will Stevens for Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans.

The Briton was part of the WTR Acura line-up in 2022 at Daytona and Sebring and is expected to move over to Cadillac with Jota next year after racing one of its customer Porsche 963 LMDhs in the WEC since last season.

Brendon Hartley, also a Toyota driver in the WEC, completes the line-up in the #10 car with a one-off at Daytona.

The New Zealander has raced for WTR since 2022 when he joined the team for the end-of-season Petit Le Mans 10-hour race at Road Atlanta and this year contested three of the five IMSA enduros in one of its Acura ARX-06s.

Kobayashi described his return to WTR as a “homecoming”, adding: “I have such an amazing and fun memory of racing with his team and also with Cadillac Racing.

“I am really appreciative not only to WTR and Cadillac to give me another opportunity to race for them but also Morizo-san [Morizo is the racing alias of Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda] and TGR for allowing me to compete in this historic event in the United States.”

WTR boss Taylor said that Kobayashi’s abilities “speak for themselves”.